Artistic Work Life-Cycle Archiving
Nicolas Esposito (CNRS UMR Heudiasyc, France)
http://www.utc.fr/~nesposit/
Abstract
Gathering knowledge about artistic works and creators is generally not very
hard (i.e. databases about cinema or music). But it is harder to learn about
the life-cycle of these artistic works (i.e. how a lm is made). Then, we can
think about a database about the life-cycles of artistic works with project
management features.
This paper presents a framework (Life-Cycle Description Framework)
which contains a method to archive the life-cycles of artistic works and a
tool to reuse them. It allows experts to build a documentation, to build
database entries, and to write project templates. And it allows Web surfers
to get this documentation, to retrieve the database entries, and to launch
projects.
The method includes an evaluation step to validate the project templates
with the help of some creators. Thus, the Web surfers do not only rely on
the quality of the expert work.
The rst part of the Life-Cycle Description Framework (documentation)
has been successfully carried out since 2005. The two other parts (database
and project follow-up) have been tested internally since a few months. The
rst promising results will be followed by a public beta release. We will also
work on non-artistic domains.
Keywords: artistic works, life-cycle, archiving & preservation, cultural
knowledge, acquisition & retrieval, production process.

1 Introduction
Gathering knowledge about artistic works and creators is generally not very
hard. For example, we can nd on the Web databases about the cinema,
about music, etc. But it is harder to get knowledge about the life-cycle
of these artistic works. For example: how to make a lm? Of course, we
can nd many elements to answer this question (i.e. there are a lot of books
about how a scenario is written or how the light is used). But the production
processes are rarely documented.
The life-cycles of artistic works are part of our cultural heritage. A
database about them with large documentation could be useful to anyone
who would like to start a creation project. We can also think about some
management features which would allow Web surfers to follow-up their cre-
ation projects on the Web. Thus, the issue is how to archive life-cycles of
artistic works in order to study them and to reuse them.
This paper presents a framework (Life-Cycle Description Framework)
which answers this question. The Life-Cycle Description Framework con-
tains a method to archive the life-cycles of artistic works and a tool to reuse
them. This framework is divided into three parts: documentation, database,
and a tool to follow projects.
The next section presents the related work. Then, the approach (how the
knowledge is acquired and retrieved by the experts and the Web surfers) and
its implementation are presented. Later, a section shows the results of our
evaluation, and a discussion provides information about possible applications
and limitations. The paper ends with the conclusion and some words about
the future work.
2 Related Work
Several huge databases can be found on the Web about artistic works and
creators. Some artistic domains are more visible than others. Here are some
examples of such domains with examples of databases:
 the cinema: The Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com/),
 music: AllMusic (http://www.allmusic.com/),
 video games: Moby Games (http://www.mobygames.com/).
We can also nd database about newer domains, for example (Grau,
2003): the Database of Virtual Art (http://www.virtualart.at/). These
2

databases are very useful, but do not provide enough information about the
life-cycles to start a new lm, a new video game, etc.
We can look closer at the video game domain. A large documentation is
available on the Web in addition to databases; for example: virtual museums
like Classic Gaming Museum (http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/).
Moreover, the emulation technology (Esposito, 2004) even allows playing
the games on many devices and on the Web. This documentation is also
extended to the video game cultural heritage. For example, we can archive
game atmospheres thanks to virtual reality (Esposito, 2005). But it is hard
to get information about how a video game is made, from the idea to the
release of the game.
Some research projects deals with digital preservation (Lee, 2002; Glad-
ney, 2006) and especially with artistic work preservation, for example: Mus-
tica (Bachimont, 2003), InterPARES (Roeder, 2004), and Caspar (Giaretta,
et al., 2006). But the focus is on archiving works and not on archiving generic
work life-cycles. This approach does not answer to \How to make a lm,"
for example, but it provides a lot of information on several lms.
We have just seen that today, we have not a database about life-cycles of
artistic works. The step beyond such a database could be to use a tool on
the Web to manage a project based on a life-cycle description. For example,
Zoho Project (http://projects.zoho.com/) and Project 360 (http://www.
project360.com/) allows us to manage a project on the Web with a Gantt
view. But these tools do not provide a template/instance approach: You
cannot choose a template (i.e. an artistic work life-cycle such as \Making a
humorous video") to launch your project and follow it.
RendezVousCreation (http://www.rendezvouscreation.org/) is a non-
prot organization. Its goal is to provide the cultural knowledge we are talk-
ing about (life-cycle descriptions) in an educational way. Since 2005, a large
documentation has been built. It is the starting point of our Life-Cycle De-
scription Framework. Now, it allows us to build an artistic work life-cycle
database and to design a tool which takes advantage of this cultural knowl-
edge to let the Web surfers launch their projects.
3 Approach and Implementation
3.1 The Life-Cycle Description Framework
The Life-Cycle Description Framework contains a method to archive life-
cycles of artistic works and a tool to reuse them. This framework is divided
into three parts: a documentation, a database, and a project follow-up tool
3

(see gure 1). It allows experts to build a documentation, to build database
entries, and to write project templates. And it allows the Web surfers to get
this documentation, to retrieve the database entries, and to launch projects.
get documentation
write project
templates
get database entries
build database entries
launch projects
refer to refer to
interview creators and
build documentation
Experts
Blog/podcast
(RendezVousCreation)
Blog
(CreationService)
Project follow-up
(ProInstance)
Documentation
Database
entries
Templates
Web surfers
Figure 1: Architecture of the Life-Cycle Description Framework.
Here is the basic use case:
 the Web surfer accesses the life-cycle database,
 the Web surfer chooses a domain (i.e. audio-visual),
 the Web surfer chooses a life-cycle (i.e. audio-visual documentary),
 the Web surfer gets the database entry about an audio-visual docu-
mentary,
 the Web surfer accesses to the documents about an audio-visual docu-
mentary,
 the Web surfer launches a project based on the audio-visual documen-
tary template,
 the Web surfer invites friends to join the project,
4

 the Web surfer and the team complete the project,
 an expert/creator provides some feedback.
4 Documentation
The documentation is the rst part of the Life-Cycle Description Framework.
The experts interview creators and build the documentation. And the Web
surfers get this documentation (http://www.rendezvouscreation.org/).
Here are some examples of creators: musicians, directors, writers, pho-
tographers, and graphic artists (see gure 2). The interviews are based on
three parts: before the production, the production, and after the production.
Thus, its covers the entire life-cycle, from the idea to the comments of the
public. But before an interview, a strong preparation phase is needed to have
enough information about the domain and the production process.
Figure 2: Some creators who were interviewed for RendezVousCreation
(Tania de Montaigne, Sam, Philippe Ayme, Eric Viennot, Travis Burki, Vin-
cent Luc, DJ Zebra, Foudil).
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RendezVousCreation also provides production notes following the same
phases. We produce documentary lms (i.e. how a documentary lm is
produced). We give examples, for example: photo galleries (see gure 3).
We also develop educational games. We have two famous games on the Web
about aesthetic in photography and camera adjustments in photography (see
gure 4). We write articles about the tools (software, hardware) which can be
used for a creation (i.e. an article about the microphones). We provide refer-
ences (books, Web sites, etc.). And we provide some advice about purchases.
Figure 3: Some photos sent by RendezVousCreation visitors (Serge Ramelli,
Frederic Hiard, Marouane Cherkaoui, Charlotte Vernhes).
Here is the list of the life-cycles of artistic works which are documented
by RendezVousCreation:
 photo report,
 audio-visual documentary,
 short ction lm,
 humorous video,
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 song,
 own-produced music album,
 concert,
 video game,
 magazine paste-up,
 magazine issue,
 novel.
Figure 4: Screenshot of the second educational game published by Ren-
dezVousCreation (Declenchez-moi, camera adjustments in photography).
This cultural knowledge is provided using a blog. It allows the Web surfers
to subscribe and to write comments about each element. The categories of
this blog are related to the type of content: interviews, production notes, pic-
tures, video games, texts, videos, knowledge, tools, references, etc. The ver-
sion 2 of this blog uses the Blogger platform (http://www.blogger.com/).
7

The podcast technology is also used. It means that the users can au-
tomatically get the audio interviews, the videos, and more in an applica-
tion such as iTunes or on a portable device such as an iPod. Feedburner
(http://www.feedburner.com/) is used to enhance the blog to a podcast.
Here are the le formats which are used: JPEG for photos, PNG for other
pictures, MP3 for interviews and music, MPEG 4 and DivX for videos. The
interviews, the music, and the videos can be played in the blog using the
Flash technology. The interviews and the music use Dewplayer. And the
video are also shared on several Web site like YouTube, Dailymotion, and
Blip.
Figure 5: Screenshot of the podcast category of the RendezVousCreation
Web site (http://www.rendezvouscreation.org/).
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4.1 Database
The database is the second part of the Life-Cycle Description Framework.
Experts build database entries. And Web surfers get these database entries
(http://www.creationservice.org/).
This life-cycle database can be seen as a structuring of the documentation
into database entries. These entries are classied following the domain of the
life-cycle. For example, an audio-visual documentary and a short ction lm
belong to the audio-visual domain, a song and a concert belong to the music
domain.
Here is the list of domains which are available on CreationService:
 photo,
 audio-visual,
 music,
 video games,
 graphic design,
 literature.
An entry (i.e. photo report) contains references to the documentation:
 interviews (i.e. photographers),
 production notes (i.e. an article about a photo report),
 a documentary lm (i.e. a lm about how a photo report is made),
 examples (i.e. photo galleries),
 educational games (i.e. our two games about photography),
 articles about the tools (i.e. an article which compare two cameras),
 references (i.e. a list of books and Web sites),
 some advice about purchases (i.e. links to buy products).
An entry also refers to a template. This template allows the Web surfer
to launch a project and the tool described below allows the project follow-up.
The life-cycle database is a simple blog. The categories of the blog are the
domains. Thus, the Web surfer can choose a domain by choosing a category
of the blog. The Blogger platform is used.
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4.2 Project Follow-up
The project follow-up is the third part of the Life-Cycle Description Frame-
work. Experts write project templates. And the Web surfers launch projects.
Using their expertise, new interviews, and strong references, the experts
write descriptions of the life-cycles. They dene the phases, how they are
split into tasks, and they write the description of these tasks. Thus, they
write project templates.
The experts also provide diagrams which show a graphical organization
of the life-cycles: the standard Gantt diagram and an AWLCD diagram (see
gure 6 for an example). AWLCD is an ontology to describe life-cycles of
artistic works. It has been used especially to describe contemporary musical
works in the Caspar project (Geslin & Esposito, 2007), but it also allows to
describe generic life-cycles.
People
Dave Lloyd
Group
Authors
Work
Machinima
creates
Creator
Editor
Organization
Course Technology
as
is used by
Role
Author
People
Matt Kelland
People
Dave Morris
contains as
creates
Edition
First edition
Intermediary
Publisher
as
Rights
Copyright
is protected by
is received by
People
Machinima readers
creates
Document: Letters
to the authors
is provi-
ded by
Public
Readers
as
Figure 6: A description of a book life-cycle using AWLCD.
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A web tool was designed and developed. Its name is ProInstance. \Pro"
for project. And \Instance" because the approach is a template/instance
approach: experts write project templates (see gure 7) and the Web surfers
launch projects by instancing these templates.
The Web surfer who has just launched a project can invite friends to join
the project. ProInstance helps to follow the project. It provides access to
the description of the tasks, to document examples, and more. The team
members can choose the status of the tasks, refer to documents, add com-
ments, etc. Besides, ProInstance allows experts and creators to provide some
feedback.
ProInstance is a free software (http://www.proinstance.org/). It was
written in PHP 4. It does not need a database (XML les are used).
Figure 7: A screenshot of ProInstance wich displays a very simple template.
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5 Evaluation
The method of the Life-Cycle Description Framework includes two steps of
quality assurance. This quality assurance is about the project templates.
The rst step is a requirement: the expert must have been involved in the
kind of project he or she describes.
The second step comes after the rst version of a template. The expert
must interview creators about this rst version in order to correct and en-
hance it. The question is: Is the template accurate enough? In other words:
does it really describe the life-cycle?
It is very hard to get a generic life-cycle. There are two main risks. The
rst risk is to be too general: a description that is too general does not
provide enough information to start a new project. And the second risk is to
be too specic: A too specic description does not provide enough freedom.
The additional interviews allow an expert to nd a happy medium. The
expert presents the rst version of the template and he or she asks creators
what to modify, what to add, and what to remove. Working with several
creators can be confusing and the expert has to avoid elements that are too
specic.
Our experience shows us that these two steps of quality assurance are
essential. The rst version of a template is generally too simple. After the
additional interviews, a corrected and enhanced template provides very useful
knowledge to start a new project.
6 Discussion
The Life-Cycle Description Framework is currently used for artistic domains
(music, video games, etc.). But it could also be used for non-artistic domains.
We are building documentation about these life-cycles:
 how a technical book is written,
 how a service on the Web is created,
 how a company is created.
But our approach/implementation does not address mainly three issues:
1. The long-term preservation (i.e. 100 or 200 years) of the archived
content. For example, we do not embed information about the formats
we use.
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2. Interoperability. The content can easily be extracted from ProInstance
(thanks to the XML les we use), but the documentation and the
database is harder to extract from Blogger.
3. Translations. Only some interviews and the database entries are avail-
able in English. We have to translate a lot of content from French to
English.
7 Conclusion and Future Work
We propose the Life-Cycle Description Framework. This framework contains
a method to archive life-cycles of artistic works and a tool to reuse them.
Our implementation provides a large documentation about some life-cycles
of artistic works, a database which structures this documentation, and a Web
tool to launch projects based on templates.
The future of this implementation is to work on more life-cycles and more
domains (especially non-artistic domains). It is also to progressively translate
our content into English. And soon, a public beta release of ProInstance will
be available.
8 References
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//polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/blanchette/papers/wedelmusic.pdf
Esposito, N. (2004). Emulation et conservation du patrimoine culturel
lie aux jeux video. Proceedings of ICHIM 04 (Digital Culture and Her-
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pdf
Esposito, N. (2005). Game Atmosphere Archiving Thanks to Virtual Real-
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ings of ICHIM 05 (Digital Culture and Heritage). http://www.ichim.
org/ichim05/contenu/PDF/SVG-Esposito.pdf
Geslin, Y. & Esposito, N. (2007). A Method to Represent Acousmatic
Works. Intangible Heritage Workshop. http://www.utc.fr/~nesposit/
publications/esposito2007method.pdf
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Giaretta, D., et al. (2006). Caspar and a European Infrastructure for
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